Moving Toward Your Heart – Compassion
Outer chaos, inner calmness, and healing
Master Glenn Tobey
Addressing your emotional response to the pandemic.
March 31, 2020
My focus today is on compassion. In a time of crisis, we often call upon our leaders to respond with intelligent decisions and compassionate hearts. Sometimes leaders without compassion in them, yet we expect them have that kind of compassion. Sometimes we expect the leaders with compassion, but the leaders without compassion cannot deliver it. Then what happens? We become more affected by that dynamic.
The importance of compassion is moving towards your heart. The more we expect the leaders who are lack of compassion, the more the leaders turn into a survival mode. It becomes a brain thing. Survive! Survive!
The more we can turn things into compassion is opening the heart. I always have this little formula. There is hurt. From hurt it can move into anger. From hurt it can move into sadness, into compassion.
When someone is in survival mode, it takes the hurt into anger. The purpose of anger is survival. But the purpose of sadness is to make a connection. So beautiful. We move things into the sadness. Empathy compassion is about making a connection with others. Recognize and apply others are in as we are in. Empathy compassion provides that link and connection with each other.
The power of empathy, the power of compassion moves us towards the hearts. The brain is about survival. The heart is about opening, being connected, and feeling the connection. What I love so much about Spring Forest Qigong is that you understand the heart energy.
The heart energy is really focusing on what is the meaning of life. Shake your fists off. Why are the things as they are? Then you have kind of spiritual depression. Master Lin taught me a calligraphy form. It’s the symbol of depression. Master Lin explained that depression is 100% heart lost.
Empathy compassion is about the connection with 100% love gain. How can we open our hearts to connect with other people in 100 different ways.
You can connect only two brains. This is an impressive concept. It becomes 100% heart lost. Moving away from your heart.
One of the Qigong healing movement is:
Inhaling, bending the knees. Moving the arms out to the sides. Exhaling, coming back in. This is a movement work on the heart energy. Say to yourself, “I feel joy.” Feel the vibration of joy. You might say, “How can I feel joy if I have a leader without compassion?” It’s not about the evaluation of others. It’s about the vibration your heart needs. The vibration the heart needs is the vibration of joy. Just say, “I feel joy.” You move your heart into that vibration. You don’t have to prove it. Just say, “I feel joy. I feel this vibration of joy.” No matter what is happening outside this chaos, you always come back to that inside joy.
Qigong Master Glenn Tobey
Master Glenn Tobey, M. Div., M. A. in Management, is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker in private practice in Duluth, Minnesota.
He has almost forty years of experience in the Human Service field and has worked in both urban and rural settings, and values the collaborative community-based model.
He has also taught at the college level, and conducted numerous SFQ workshops and trainings in various community settings. Glenn continues to teach and to share his knowledge and wisdom of Spring Forest Qigong which is at the center of both his professional focus and his personal passion.
Glenn is a member of the SFQ teaching team. He teaches Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, Instructor Certification, and other workshops.